Nousaine wrote:

And here we disagree. With enough time, testing, and tweaking of
the design, a DIYer can easily equal the low-end offerings from
most every manufacturer.

IME that is simply not the case. And I'm a big DIY fan but quite frankly very,
very few DIY projects sound as good as a Paradigm Titan. One of the big limits
is buying drivers one or two at a time and having the facilities to verify
actual performance and no ability to build or order to spec.

It's not rocket science to get good drivers anymore, though you often
do need to buy a few to fine tune the design. Or, you can copy some
other DIYer's successful design but upgrade it and refine it a bit more.

From a manufacturer I'd be guessing that you'll get out-of-spec parts for the
kit version. OTOH the kits from TAE and Madisound that are based on D'Appolito
designs are more sure bets.

My point was that you assume a DIYer needs to start from scratch.
I coudl for instance, take an Ellis Audio or Shamrock Audio or
simmilar speaker that uses off-the-shelf components and use that
as the basis for something better.

As was true in the 70-80s. Legacy was started in a garage. The 'tale of the
tape' in that era was that in the "Audio" Equipment Annual there were 300
speaker manufacturers listed every year but only a third of them made it from
year to year. This was because a 'speaker" business was so easy to 'start.'

Well, people who can't run a business are a whole other unrelated
problem.

A few local customers/dealers, a day-job and a little extra cash would get you
going as long as you were making speakers in small batches.

No problem here.

But the pitfalls
were a good review somewhere with exploding demand that couldn't be met

That would only be a problem if you were a novice at management.
It's not hard to get on the phone and have a place like Madisound
ship you 100 units if you so require.

or,
more likely, acquistion of production facilities and inventory on the 'bet'
that demand would continue to grow by 100% every year for a long time;

Again, only a fool invests in facilities and inventory. Lean and low
overhead wins every time. I don't see very many out of work lawyers
or consultants. Why? Because they don't have half a million tied
up sitting in the warehouse.

In the last 5 years or so, a inventoryless business model has
become possible due to advances in technology.

forgetting that 1 to 2 units, 2 to 4 units and 4 to 8 units is not the same as
100,000 to 200,000.

And this again is why so many businesses fail. They aren't ever
happy with the art of creating something and want more and more and
still more. Then they implode.

Contrary to popular belief, the big companies don't spend very
much if any time developing their lower-end "budget" models.
Certainly nothing that a DIYer with enough time and patience
couldn't do.

Certainly "could" do but in my experience seldom do .... unless they have
access to professional expertise and validation equipment.

Well, I don't consider those people to be DIYers but hacks, plain
and simple. If they can't do proper designing and research and
get the proper test equipment(or borrow facilities), then they
aren't the real deal.

It's like the person who builds his own telescope versus someone
who kludges together a few parts as a hobbyist.

It's on that basis that I say that remarkably few DIY projects equal
the level
of sonic excellence attained by the better speaker companies at ANY price
level. I will concede that DIY projects often equal or better the more pathetic
"high-end" speakers.

But that was exactly my claim. That a DIY type speaker can easily
equal or better most of the the lower-end speakers that dominate
the under $1000 marketplace. Why get a 6 inch woofer in a MDF box
when you can do better for the same money yourself?(providing you
actually do some real design work)

The guy who runs Ellis Audio has been at it for several years and
has easily more man-hours than KEF would spend on a comparable
sounding speaker. KEF would of course have several people working
for a few months on the design versus his several years by himself.

This is just a guess on your part. Furthermore the KEF engineers won't have to
spend time answering the phone and cleaning the bathrooms either.

No, it's one of the few things that I know. I used to keep tabs on
JBL back when they were their own company. I know how they designed
speakers from a manpower point, and the less expensive models are
done with a small team and a few hundred hours of combined work.

And I question the "several years" assumption. If a speaker designer spent
years on a design how did he manage to eat during that time? Day-Job? Oh well
then he really didn't spend years then?

He didn't care about profit. He has a good job and makes speakers
in his spare time.

And isn't 3-months from 8 engineers still 2 man years?

Yes it is. Peope are people, though, and one man can do in a decade
if need be by himself what a whole slew of workers can. IF he does
the work. Most peolpe don't.